What worries you? Fionn persisted, pawing at some of the fat fish that swam around in their little cove. Kaleo didn’t even know if the fish were edible but they looked like they might be and the fisherman at the docks were pulling up net fulls.
“Aeron,” he answered, feeling a fin slip through his fingers. “We need a net.”
No, we need a fire.
Kaleo looked up to see two giant fish in Fionn’s maw. The young avian smiled, shaking his head. He would be dead without the chimera. He was happy to pull his legs and arms out of the water, however and set a fire for the fish. The meal was only a small distraction. Fionn noticed, nosing him in his middle when they’d finished the two fish.
“What?” Kaleo chuckled. “I told you, I’m worried about Aeron. He’s somewhere in Kormaine and… I don’t know. Whatever happened that night didn’t feel right, Fionn. It… it hurt. I feel like it’s related. Maybe after I find my father I’ll go find Aeron.”
Do you really think that’s wise, little one?
“When have I ever done anything wise?” Kaleo threw back with a smirk as he resettled himself on his back. “A problem for another day. Gods what I wouldn’t give for a bed.”
I should probably not mention the city behind us, then?
“Good night, Fionn.”
***
Nadya watched her nephew closely as they traversed the catacombs of Kormaine. Sapphire City was long behind them, but she still watched him. He said nothing about what happened as they left the city, of why he cried out in pain and fell ill for several days. Carrying him had slowed them down considerably, but they managed. To call him her nephew was still awkward as he was only two years her senior. There was fifteen years between she and Mikhael, and another eight between he and Josephine, Demyan’s mother. She’d gone missing shortly after Demyan’s birth and the story he told of what followed was too outrageous to believe. Yet, she watched the reality of it daily. He knew nothing of Kormaine, not even the language. While he was learning, it was painful to listen to. His grasp of the Trade Cant was worse. Watching him communicate with his wife was equally painful. Part of Nadya wanted to intervene, the other part took some perverse joy in his discomfort.
He was the reason Mikhael was gone. Without Demyan, Mikhael would have remained in the city as King rather than leading soldiers to fight in the Pass. She knew it was unfair of her to lay blame at Demyan’s feet, but she had to lay it somewhere.
“You can’t glare him into oblivion, you know.” Nadya jumped, the words whispered in
Kormandi with a touch of humor laced through them. She glanced over her shoulder to see the fallen prince of the Phoenix Empire and quickly looked away, her fair cheeks flushing until she thought they would ignite in flames. He was quite handsome, despite being tirsai. All of Kormaine had strong feelings against the tirsai, Nadya especially. The only hateful thing Mikhael had ever done was to barter her off like chattel to them, in hopes that it would end the animosity between the two nations. Discussions of marrying her off to the former Speaker had been in the works when the tirsai nation fell. She did not care for the Speaker. He was crude, arrogant, and thought very little of women in general. While she mourned his loss, she was glad that the union never came to fruition. Aeron, however, was giving her second thoughts about her sour opinion of the tirsai.
“I am not glaring, fallen prince,” she replied in her native tongue. He chortled but let it be. “Your Speaker, he was never found, was he?”
The change in subject surprised the prince, she could tell by the way he looked at her. He was older than Demyan, but did not appear so as was normal for the olve. She looked at him, into his lavender-colored eyes and waited.
“No, he wasn’t,” he finally answered. “We think he was taken.”
“Like Mikhael,” she finished. Aeron merely nodded. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Nothing good, that’s for sure. Azure said there was something wrong with Sofia…er… Danyel’s Node.”
“Azure?” Nadya asked, as it was a name she was not familiar with.
“My uncle’s audeas.”
She paused and looked at him while the others continued walking. He paused along with her, studying her face. This time, she did not flush, but frowned at him. “Gannon was a Speaker?”
Aeron grinned. “My uncle had a lot of secrets, highness.”
Nadya sniffed and walked in silence for a few steps, glancing back at the fallen prince a few times. He watched her like she watched Demyan. It was a little unsettling.
“Is that why you hate him?” Aeron continued after some moments of observation. “Demyan. Do you hate him because my uncle brought him home? It sort of threw things upside down, didn’t it?”
“I don’t hate him,” Nadya argued.
“You don’t like him, though,” Aeron countered. “No one does. It shows. And, if I can see it, so can he. Hardly seems fair. It’s not like he wanted any of this.”
“Aeron,” Demyan said making the young tirsai jump, worried that he’d been heard. Nadya felt her own heart skip a beat, watching Aeron move up to where Demyan stood. They were of equal height, Demyan and Aeron, but Aeron stood with more confidence. It made Nadya’s stomach knot with guilt.
“What are they?” she heard Aeron ask in the Imperial tongue, the language of the kitsune to the south; the language of the slavers. Nadya sneered at that, wishing her nephew would learn Kormandi or the Trade Cant faster than he was so he’d stop using that cursed language. She moved forward out of curiosity, but the Baron caught her arm and shook his head. She frowned at
